What Walls Do

Liberty tipped his head and squinted at the top of the blood-smeared wall. “How tall is it again? I never remember.”

I shrugged. “Hundred feet. Maybe twice that.”

For a minute we watched four refugees struggle at the postern, where someone had hammered in rail spikes almost halfway up. The guard had yet to take it down. Rumor was six people got over on Sunday. But this family would never make it. Not with a baby.

“Why’d they build it anyway?”

“Well son, back then it was to keep people out.”

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This has been an edition of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the generous & talented Rochelle Wisoff Fields. This week’s photo courtesy Madison Woods. To read more 100-word flash fiction or to submit your own, click the blue froggy button.

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall . . . Spring is the mischief in me, why do good fences make good neighbours? Before I built a wall I’d ask what I was walling in and walling out? And to whom I was like to give offence? Good fences make good neighbours.” – Frosthttps://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/mending-wall

Whenever I hear Trump or whoever talking about building walls of any kind I think of this poem. It is one of my absolute favourites and teaches such vital lessons.